FERNA DA SILVEIRA. "Que trouver porta dolada camisa trazer nam cure menores porem ature porque nam pendă aa banda. O gybam de qualquer pano na barriga bem folgado dos peytos tam agastado que seu dono tragou fano. "De pelote se guarneca "Deve trazer cramynhola "Luuas dhuu soo poleguar e item mays trazeraa "Traga çinta de verdugo “O que for assy aposto Calguus sam ja conhecidos "Pero quem for ho serão e aas damas da la mão. e falar fagueyramente aos outros derredor e se ouuyr nom seor acodyr muy rrygamente. "Na outra parte segunda poys ja dey fym a prymeyra sobrinho nesta maneyra a tençam minha se funda. Pero o paço se trautar estas manhas se rrequerem e nos que elas couberem na corte sam de prezar. "He muy bom ser alterado e ser gram desprezador e he bom ser rryfador mas melhor ser desbocado. Outrossy he bom doufano em todo caso tocar mas melhor he ja gabar e mentyr de macha mano "He muy bom buscar punhadas "Item manha de louar em qualquer galante cabe. 243 244 FERNA DA SILVEIRA. "Saber bem o pego chuna e ho cubre bem jugar sam duas pera duedrar galante contra fortuna. Nem saber ya a huũ fylho escolher milhor conselho se nam que jogo fytelho jaldeta cunca sarylho. "Quem estas manhas tyver que ja dise inteyramente poda ver ao presente quanto lhe fyzer mester. Ca hu sele descobrir qual sera e tam sofruda que The logo nam acuda e lhe de canto pedyr. "Mas que diga sayba sayba jugar despada e broquell porque dentro no bordel como fora dole cayba e se lhe vyesse a mão poder sya meleter quem ajudasa ssoster seu andar sempre loução "Regalo deve mostrar que nam leva em colo duas e que todas cousas suas sam muy dynas de prezar Item mays falar em tudo e aprefiar sem medo e oos olhos hyr codedo e fyngyr de muy agudo. "Falar nos feytos da guerra as duas partes de dia esta manha louuarya poys o leva assy a terra. e tomar mays outro sy ho caso sobre seu peyto mas na concrusam do feyto o fazer buscay por hy. "Item nam he manha fea quem achar da moo escuro estar quedo e muy seguro e bradar pola candea. Nem he menos verdadeyra que a outra do fytelho mostrar ser grã dominguelho e pegar pola primeyra. Eyxa aquy outra stamboa nem menos para notar sempre o paço yr demandar entra bespora e nona porque nam desacotoe com ombradas o pardilho cassy fazia ofilho daquele que deos perdoe. "Tambem vos quero avysar nam vades como pataão se ventura no seraão com damas vos forropar. Da boca podes dyzer mas a mão sempreste queda e tocalhe na moeda lesse poode correger. "E per esta mesma guysa sabe delas toda vya FRANCISCO DIAS GOMES. 245 "Dezia o sobre escryto destao porque | where, unless they possessed an unusual rehyam cerradas em forma de cesta. Francisco Dias Gomes. WAS born at Lisbon in 1745, the son of a petty tradesman. His parents were good people, careful of their children's moral education. Francisco was designed for the law. He passed through the previous studies in the schools da Congregaçao do Oratorio. Rhetoric and Poetry he studied under the royal professor Pedro Jose da Fonseca, selecting with uncommon judgment for his age, the best-esteemed masters. He had hardly commenced his legal studies at Coimbra, when the uncle, whose name he bore, and whose opinion swayed the family, altered his destination. This man was really desirous to promote the welfare of his relations, and thought the quiet profits of trade a better establishment for young Francisco than the practice of an uncertain profession, honourable, but often profiting the fortune little, and the moral character still less. Fructuoso Dias, the father, who was as ignorant as his brother, except in the world's common wisdom, was persuaded, and the young student was ordered immediately to quit the University. The thread of his stu dies was thus broken for ever. The uncle had accompanied his advice with an offer to assist his nephew in opening a shop in his father's trade, and Francisco found himself settled in a huckster's business, where his talents were to be exercised through life in the lowest branches of calculation! 1 In the MS. some portions of this are marked "inked over,"-others "blotted," so that it is probably incorrect. J. W. W. sisting force, a strong vital principle, they must perish, or vegetate in miserable barrenness, like the ill-planted tree which in a better soil would have been beautiful with blossoms and rich with fruit. Thus was the genius of Francisco Dias blasted in the bud. He did not, indeed, lose ground, but he never advanced. His understanding was chained down to a common, and low, and worthless pursuit. In the unwholesomeness of this shade, the tree might, indeed, exist, but could not possibly flourish. His talents were like a hale-constitutioned child pining upon the scanty food of poverty. The young man felt his situation and struggled against it. He read assiduously; poetry was his favourite pursuit; it was his passion. He acquired taste, extensive knowledge of the subject; but he lost originality, his head was crowded with the ideas of others, and it is always easier to remember than to invent. I have constantly observed, in the course of my life and studies," says his biographer, "that men of much learning are rarely men of originality." Imitation is the universal talent of the human race, or rather a constant disposition with which nature has endowed us in place of the instinct which she has implanted in animals. It may, with some propriety, be called the instinct of rational beings. Accustomed as we are from the first moments of existence to obey this law of nature, and every day more habituated to obedience, now willingly, now compelled by some unskilful instructor, only strong and gifted minds can swerve from the track in which they are perpetually impelled. This perpetual contrast between his inclination and his mode of life, prevented him from rising either in talents or in fortune. Francisco could never attain in his circumstances even to decent mediocrity. But what other fate could be expected? Trading in a mean and petty business from necessity, and writing poetry from inclination, without leisure to improve his talents, 246 FRANCISCO DIAS GOMES. without applause to stimulate them, it was impossible that he could ever be a rich merchant, or an original poet. But he was just in his dealings, and unwearied in polishing what he wrote; and has left the character of a pure and correct writer, and of an honest man. The obscurity of his situation, and his natural modesty and reserve, hid him from the knowledge of his contemporary men of letters; some few, however, were among his friends. In all his difficulties he preserved the most complete independence, his cares and disquietudes were hidden in his own breast, so that it was difficult for his friends to discover his distresses, and still more, to prevail on him to accept their assistance in alleviation. His death may in some measure be ascribed to this excess of austerity, "which I dare not," (says Stockler,)"call virtue." An epidemic fever attacked all his family in the spring of 1795. Francisco Dias would not beg assistance, and he was the nurse and the physician of his wife and children. The disease infected himself, he persisted in accepting no advice, and no attendance but that of his half-recovered family. The fever therefore destroyed him. On the thirtieth of September he died, dying with that resignation and constancy which he had ever manifested through a life of unceasing distress. The Royal Academy came forward on this occasion, to perform an act of charity to individuals and of duty to the public. The present edition of his poems is published at their expense, for the benefit of his widow and three children, to whom the produce of his labour and watchfulness rightly belongs. Analyse e combinações filosoficas sobre a elocuçao, e estylo de Sâ de Miranda, Ferreira, Bernardes, Caminha, e Camões. por Francisco Dias Gomes. THE Italians first recultivated poetry and perfected the metres which the Pro vencals and Sicilians had invented. Dante fixed the accents of the hendecasyllable line, the most essential metre in the Italian, Spanish and Portuguese languages. Poetry entered Spain with the Moors; the long wars of the peninsula kept the languages rude and barbarous; they were both at the same time attended to and perfected. Joao de Barros proved by his work that the Portuguese was the nearest descendant of the Latin.1 The Portuguese is sweet and sonorous, and ever was so, not effeminated like the Italian by too abundant vowels, not harsh and unpronounceable with clotted consonants like the northern languages; this is a predisposing cause of poetry; but the early poems, those anterior to the fifteenth century, existing in the old libraries, those of King D. Diniz in the Convent of the Order of Christ at Thomar and in the valuable Cancioneiro of Resende, these will throw most light on the history of the country poetry. The Portuguese nation till the end of D. Fernando's reign lay in ignorance, solely employed in the cultivation of their lands as much as was necessary for the internal consumption, and to keep up a mere shadow of external commerce, continually interrupted by the Moors who eternally infested their seas, living like exiles in the solitude of their fields, without police or communication; they spoke a rude and unshaped language, full of harsh sounds with which the barbarous language had infected them, of difficult dipthongs, of awkward terminations, without syntax, without order, without harmony. The great revolution under D. Joao I. awakened the nation, their barbarous Latin ceased to be the language of the forum. The conquest of Ceuta gave birth to great projects, and Portugal appeared suddenly a nation of heroes, unexcelled by fore or after ages. The language grew with the FRANCISCO DIAS GOMES. power of the state. The poetry of King Diniz and the first Pedro are in a jargon difficultly understandable; in half a century the Chronicles of Fernao Lopez appeared, the most ancient and venerable historian of the country, written in a language so perspicuous and so different from his predecessors that it might be imagined another idiom. Still the language, till the end of D. Joao II.'s reign, remained confused, and lawless, and poor. This was its state when Sa de Miranda arose. Without models, save the example of the Italian metres, he subdued the savage language, tamed it to the infinite combinations of harmony, and fixed the pronunciation. The octonary verse was the common one; he adopted the hendecasyllable, and the seven syllable which with the former is the best lyric mixture, because of the concordant pauses. The sonnet which had been introduced by the Infant D. Pedro de Alfarroubeira, a celebrated poet, the most enlightened prince of his time, and the greatest man of the Portuguese nation, was perfected by Sa de Miranda and brought to the state in which it has since continued. He taught his countrymen the structure of the Cançao, of the octave and the triad stanzas. The simple superlative, a mode so far more poetical than the compound, was the invention of this poet. Antonio Ferreira, -the Gower of the Portuguese Chaucer,-only not inferior in genius, seconded Sa de Miranda. He perfected the Elegy and the Horatian Epistle which his friend and predecessor had used, and introduced the Epigram, the Ode, the Epithalamium and the Tragedy. Trissino's Sofonisba was the first regular Tragedy. Ferreira's Castro the second, and it still remains the best in the language, notwithstanding its sin against the unity of place. He devoted himself to useful poetry, and is the only poet of his nation who has left no baby prettinesses. Diogo Bernardes, less correct than Ferreira, is more harmonious. His Bucolics are 247 reputed the best of the Spanish Pastorals. Lope de Vega expressly owns that from him he learnt to write Eclogues. Pedro de Andrade Caminha did nothing but flatter his contemporaries and write worse than all of them. Camões perfected the poetry. His Lusiada1 is the first epic which was written in the octave stanza. Sa de Miranda writes with the simplicity characteristic of his governed and correct (moderate) genius; a richer expression appears in Ferreira. Bernardes is still more copious. Camões full and perfect. In the two elder the frequent fault occurs of ending one line with an adjective and beginning the next with its substantive, a poor and prosaic feature. Gomes-2. Essay. SA DE MIRANDA never kindles, never dazzles, never agitates; but he enlightens, he enlivens, he pleases, he adapts himself to the dim sight of the little knowing reader. Conciseness and perspicuity characterize his style, he endeavours simply to express his conceptions in ready, not studied, language. The spirit of his thoughts embodied itself in the first shape that presented. It was indifferent to him whether he poured his wine into a golden goblet or an earthen cruise-the contents were the value, not the vessel-but the vessel was ever well sized and pure. He addressed the judgment not the eye-willing rather to instruct the one, than to amuse the other. Of Antonio Ferreira, Horace was the favourite author. He devoted himself to useful poetry—the same severity of taste made him concise, and he ever attended less to harmony than to the brief expression of his meaning. His pictures are graves and somewhat rudely finished. Strong rather than sweet he is animated and full of that fire which elevates the spirit and moves the 1 This must be mistaken. |